Jake's Birthday
by Splattifying Agent 2
Summary: As Jake is celebrating his birthday, he gets some surprise visitors. The quality of this story does not balance the six months that you guys had to wait for it.


**[A/N] I feel like I was kind of grasping for straws, trying to come up with new material for these two, but I CAN'T HELP IT I LOVE THEM SO MUCH AND I NEVER WANT TO STOP WRITING THEM**

 **I need** ** _all the inspiration_** **, seriously. If I had more ideas, I would never stop writing about these two.**

 **Enough gushing about my OCs, though. On to the story! Make sure to wish Jake (and myself) a happy birthday!**

Jake lazily lifted his head off the pillow and yawned. Man, he was tired. He stayed up _way_ too late last night. He pondered for a moment.

 _I'll have some breakfast and go back to sleep_ , he thought. _Get myself ready for the day_.

He walked into the living room, flicked on the lights, and…

"SURPRISE!"

Jake nearly jumped out of his skin as he saw his friends standing in the living room with smiles on their faces. A loud _pop_ rang out, and he was showered with confetti.

Grace walked up to him and shook his hand. "Welcome to adulthood!" she said. "It sucks. You're gonna love it."

Jake looked around at his friends and grinned. He high-fived Cole and Adam, and hugged Tori. "Did you set this up?" he asked her.

"Would you believe me if I said they just came over?" Tori replied.

Jake looked back around, surprised. "Seriously? You guys have never done this before."

"It's your twentieth, big guy," Cole said. "How could we pass up something like this?"

"I'll have to keep that in mind," Jake said. "Anyway, thanks, guys. It means a lot that you came up here today."

"We wouldn't miss it for the world," Adam said.

For a moment, nobody said anything. Then Jake spoke up again. "So… what'd you guys get me?"

"Are you serious?" Grace asked. "C'mon, we were having a moment there! You can't just ruin it like that!"

Jake shrugged. "What's even the point of birthdays if you don't have presents? C'mon, what'd you guys get me?"

The other three Inklings looked at each other, and back at Jake sheepishly. Jake raised one eyebrow.

"Well? What's wrong?"

"We, uh… forgot to get you anything," Adam confessed. He visibly braced himself.

"Oh," Jake said. "Okay, no problem."

The other three Inklings stared at him, surprised. "You're not mad?" Adam asked.

"Nah," Jake said with a wave of his hand. "What's it matter, anyway? I'll have more birthdays. The important thing is that I have all you guys here. That's all that matters." He cringed, slapped his forehead with one hand, and slid it down his face. "Ugh, I sound like a character from a bad kids' movie…"

The other four chuckled. They stood there for a moment, not doing anything, when there was a knock at the door. Puzzled, Jake walked over and opened it. Two pairs of arms instantly grabbed him and he was pulled into a group hug. Tori stared at the three in confusion, not being able to see the faces of the other two Inklings, but Jake's friends started to laugh and walked over to join them.

Once everyone disentangled themselves from one another, Jake led the two Inklings into the apartment, and Tori finally got a good look at the visitors.

The visitors were two older Inklings, a man and a woman. The woman had purple tentacles, and was about a head shorter than Jake. Her eyes were greenish.

The man was slightly taller than Jake, with bright green tentacles. He wore black-rimmed glasses, and he had blue eyes.

"Pretty sweet pad you've got here!" the man noted.

"C'mon, I've got someone I want you to meet," Jake said. He led the two Inklings to where Tori was standing. "Tori, these are my parents. Mom, Dad, this is my girlfriend, Tori."

Tori's eyes widened, and she stuttered for a moment as Jake's mother stuck out her hand and said "It's nice to meet you." However, his father's eyes narrowed, and he stared at Tori intensely, mumbling a greeting. From over their shoulders, Tori watched Jake's friends share a look and hurry out the door quietly.

"So what brings you here?" Jake asked.

"Are you serious?" Jake's dad replied, less intensely. "You only turn twenty once! This is a big step in my son's life!" Tears of joy formed at the corners of his eyes.

Jake laughed. "C'mon, let's sit down."

The four of them sat down in the living room. Jake and Tori sat on the couch, while his parents took the chairs. Jake had one arm around Tori's shoulders, and she noticed his father staring at her again. She looked away nervously. She wanted to whisper something in Jake's ear, but the three of them were talking and she didn't want to interrupt.

They engaged one another in conversation for a while, catching up on what was new, as his parents hadn't seen Jake in a while. Tori didn't say much, but whenever she did, Jake's father stared at her in that same way.

After the conversation went on for a time, Jake got up to start fixing lunch. His mother got up to help him, saying that she "had to make sure he didn't burn down the building." He shot her a mock glare, and they moved to the kitchen, leaving Tori with Jake's father.

Her eyes darted around the room, trying to look anywhere but at the man sitting in front of her. He stared at her for a moment, then sighed.

"Listen," he said. "Tori, right? I don't have any problems with the fact that you're an Octoling. I couldn't care less. The Great Turf War was nothing but a lot of bad decisions, and it's all in the past now. The problem is that you're his girlfriend."

He took a deep breath. "I'll admit it. When Jake was younger, I was a terrible father. I knew full well that he was getting bullied every day, and I didn't do a damn thing to stop it. I figured that the issue would resolve itself and I was wrong. I want to make it right, and the first step toward doing that is keeping him safe now."

Tori listened to everything he had to say, and nodded when he was finished. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"I want to ask you some questions. If I like what I hear, then I'll let you keep dating him. I trust my son to the ends of the Earth, but he wasn't the best judge of character when he was younger. I haven't seen him in a long time and I want to know that's changed. First of all, what is the exact nature of your relationship with him?"

Tori wanted to argue, say that it was none of his business that they were together, but felt that keeping her mouth shut was probably the better option. She held up her hand wordlessly, showing him the ring on her finger. Jake's father's eyebrows shot up.

"He proposed? Really?" Tori nodded in response. "How long have the two of you been together?"

"Around… eight months, I think. But he proposed on Valinktine's Day, so it had only been three or four by then."

He grinned. "He's taking after his old man." The grin faded. "How does he treat you?"

Tori raised an eyebrow, confused. "I thought the point of this was to make sure that I wasn't harming him. Why aren't you asking me how _I_ treat him?"

"Because I'll be able to get a more accurate answer when I ask him," Jake's father explained. "Now, how does he treat you?"

Tori thought for a moment before responding. "He's a total gentleman. I can't think of a single time when he's put his own needs before mine, even if I ask him to. He's a really great guy, honestly. I don't know what else to say. There's not much bad that I can really say about him."

The man nodded, content. "That certainly sounds like my son."

He looked like he was about to say something else when Jake and his mother sat back down. "So what were you two talking about?" he asked.

"Uh, nothing," Tori replied. "Jake, can I talk to you for a second? Alone?"

Jake blinked, then shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

She promptly grabbed his wrist and led him into the hallway.

"What's wrong?" Jake whispered.

"When you and your mom went to cook, your dad starting asking me questions," Tori replied. "Some stuff about our relationship, how you treat me, things like that. He wants to… I dunno, approve me or something. He wants to make sure I'm okay to keep dating you."

Jake raised his eyebrows. "Well, I wasn't expecting that. Thanks for letting me know."

Tori nodded. "I wanted to warn you. This way, you can have some more time to think of something to say, because he's gonna ask you some questions, too."

Jake nodded back. "Yeah, he's kind of… intense, sometimes. I've got a couple of stories from when I was younger, actually. Maybe I'll tell you later."

Tori grinned, and kissed the tip of his nose. "Good luck," she said.

They went back into the living room and sat back on the couch. Jake placed his arm around Tori's shoulders again.

There was a moment of silence before Jake's father began to speak. "Jake, I was talking to your girlfriend here, and I wanted to ask you some questions about her…"

"Michael," his mother chided. "It's none of your business who our son wants to be with."

"I'm just trying to-"

"I know what you're trying to do, and I respect that, but you're not a factor here. It's all his decision. Right, Jake?"

Jake stuttered in surprise for a moment before nodding. His mother turned back to his father.

"If he likes being with her and nothing is going wrong, it's not our place to intervene. I could tell you, just by looking at the two of them right now, that their relationship is going fine. Isn't that right?"

Jake and Tori both nodded, slightly dumbfounded.

"Give it a rest and just accept that our son is _happy_. I know you don't want to believe it, but he doesn't need you to protect him, Michael. He's doing just fine on his own and it's going to stay that way."

The man's head bowed and he mumbled an apology to his wife.

"Don't apologize to me," Jake's mother replied. "Apologize to her."

"…I'm sorry I was interrogating you," Jake's father said. "She's right. It's none of my business. All I want is for my son to be happy. And it looks like you're making him happy, so you're fine with me."

Tori smiled warmly. "It's okay," she said. "Really."

The family smiled with her.

Nothing happened for a moment before Jake's father spoke. "So what did you two make us for lunch?"

"Pasta," Jake's mother replied.

"Pasta?" Tori asked, confused.

"My grandparents used to live in a place that the humans called 'Italy,'" Jake muttered. "Apparently, pasta was one of the things they used to eat there, so my parents had us try it once when I was a kid and we loved it. It's just kind of stuck."

"What is it?" Tori asked.

"It's basically a bunch of boiled noodles covered in sauce. It's a lot better than it sounds."

"And on that note, it should be ready by now," Jake's mother said. "Let's eat."

 **[A/N] Okay, yes, this story is far from my best work. It's not long enough, it's not good enough, and it's definitely not what you guys deserve after six freakin' months of waiting.**

 **BUT DAMMIT IT'S ALL I HAVE I'M SORRY**

 **Couple other things. First of all, Tori's birthday story is coming on October 19** **th** **, as you all know, and it's going to be a lot better than this.**

 **Second of all, I've changed my mind on the Squidmas and Halloween stories. Tori's birthday is gonna be the last holiday, and after that, I'm gonna be done with these two unless I get any more ideas.**

 **Umm… I think that's all for now. I'll see you guys later! Stay fresh!**

 **Also, real quick: Jake's mother in particular is gonna appear in another story soon, but that'll be in a different universe, so she'll have a completely different personality.**


End file.
